Twelve Minutes to Midnight (6 page)

Oblivious to this secret exchange, Wigram shook his head in exasperation as the two of them turned towards the door. 

“I’ll just hold the fort here then,” the elderly lawyer called after them in a withering tone. “The January edition of
The Penny Dreadful
is scheduled to go to press in less than two weeks. There are twenty pages of new fiction to commission, letters to edit, countless illustrations to check. And that’s before we even think about the advertising. This periodical won’t publish itself, you know.”

But his muttered litany of complaints were cut off in mid-flow as Penny and Alfie closed the front door behind them and hurried down the stone steps to the bustling street below.

“So where are we really going?” Alfie asked, as they pushed their way through the crowds. A hansom cab was clattering over the cobbles towards them and Penny flung out her hand to hail it. As the cabbie reined his horses to a halt in front of them, she turned to Alfie, her face flushed with excitement.

“Bedlam,” she replied with a grin.

VIII

“So you think this Jenkins character has something to do with what’s happening to all the patients in there then?”

Penny shook her head.

“I don’t know, but he knows something – I’m sure of it. There was fear in his eyes when we arrived in his office and Dr Morris told him that Monty and I wanted to see the Midnight Papers. He could hardly stop himself from twitching the whole time we were there. And when we discovered the patients’ writings had disappeared, I could tell there was something else that he was hiding. I’d have found out what it was, too, if Monty hadn’t given up the ghost on the search before we’d had the chance to get it started.”

Pinning up her long dark hair, Penny reached out and took the flat cap from Alfie’s hand. She pulled it down over her forehead, the low brim shielding her eyes in disguise.

“But we can put that right now.” 

“And what about this brute of an orderly – Bradburn, was it?” Alfie asked, scratching his uncombed thatch of hair. “Where does he fit into the picture?”

Penny looked down at her hand at the place where her sleeve ended, the pale, slender strip of skin there marked with a harsh red line where Bradburn had viciously twisted her wrist.

“He didn’t want me hanging around to find out.”

From a short distance, there came the sound of voices and the two of them turned to peer through the hospital railings. A straggling line of workers was traipsing across the entrance court, leaving the grand columns of the portico behind them. Penelope saw the burly figure of Bradburn leading the way, his scarred face twisted into a cruel smile as he shared a joke with three more orderlies who flanked his steps. Twenty feet behind them, half-hidden amongst a stream of other grey-suited office staff, she glimpsed Jenkins’s jowly face, his eyes nervously darting from side to side as they neared the gates.

“It’s the end of the morning shift. They’re coming out.” Hanging back in the shadow of the asylum, Penny turned back to Alfie. “Remember what we agreed. I’ll follow Jenkins and you stick close to Bradburn. Find out where he goes, who he sees. Whatever you do, don’t let him catch you following him. He’s a nasty piece of work.”

“Don’t worry about me, Penny,” Alfie replied with a grin. “I’ll be like the great Sherlock Holmes tracking down the dastardly Professor Moriarty. He’ll never see me coming.”

Penny frowned.

“Professor Moriarty murdered Sherlock Holmes at the end of ‘The Adventure of the Final Problem’,” she reminded him sternly. “Just keep a safe distance and I’ll meet you back at
The Penny Dreadful
when we’re done.”

Glancing up, she saw the departing hospital workers filing out of the gates. Bradburn had stopped for a moment, a copy of
The Sporting Life
newspaper tucked under his arm. As the other three orderlies crowded around him, Penny strained her ears to catch their conversation.

“Come on, Bradburn,” said the youngest of his cronies, a spotty-faced fellow who didn’t look much older than Alfie himself, “let us into your secret. How do you keep on picking the right horses? That’s seven straight winners you’ve backed on the trot.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Bradburn sneered. “You’ll have to wait until I’ve got my own stable of horses racing at Ascot – maybe I’ll give you a couple of tips then.”

“That’s a good ’un – you owning a racehorse!” The young orderly’s pimply face creased in a grin. “That game’s fit for Lords and Ladies, not the likes of us.” 

Penny saw Bradburn’s expression change in an instant, his scar whitening as his face flushed red with anger.

“You’ll see,” he snarled in reply. He shoved his way past the young orderly, who recoiled in fear. “I’m not going to spend the rest of my days clearing out bedpans in Bedlam like you fools will.”

Leaving his workmates behind, Bradburn stepped out into the traffic, shouting an angry curse in the direction of a dray-cart driver who frantically reined in his horses to avoid a collision. As Bradburn crossed the street in the direction of the Kennington Road, Alfie glanced across at Penny.

“Wish me luck,” he breathed as he set off in close pursuit.

Penny kept her eyes fixed on the gates of the hospital. From between their white pillars, she saw Jenkins emerge and quickly turn left, scurrying down the Lambeth Road. With the cap pulled low and her cloak wrapped around her, Penelope followed him, keeping to the shadows as she stalked Jenkins’s path.

A wintry western wind was blowing in from the river, bringing with it a fog that clung to the sides of the buildings, suddenly shrouding the street in shadows even though it was nearly midday. Passers-by were like grey ghosts shuffling through the smoky soot-stained air, reaching 
out to steady themselves as they stumbled
half-blinded
along the road. Penelope had to quicken her step to keep Jenkins in sight, dodging past the other pedestrians blocking her path as the clerk plunged onwards into the gloom.

They were nearing the Thames now, the hum and hiss of life on the river penetrating through the cloaking fog. Penny heard the clatter of loading barges, lost in the shadows of the embankment, their moorings creaking as ropes were pulled tight. Through the smoke and steam, she could just make out the indistinct shapes of steamboats with red and green eyes of fire plying the treacherous pathways of the great river, their shrill horns shaking the air.

Pushing her way through a loitering crowd clustered around a street trader hawking his wares out of a wheelbarrow, Penny fought to keep Jenkins in view. She ignored the thrusting hands of a young beggar clamouring for change as the fog rising from the river thickened around them, blocking her view to only inches ahead.

“Confound it,” Penny fumed, as shaking off the urchin she stumbled onwards, her hands scrabbling against the granite wall of the embankment for guidance. Then the wind shifted, and ahead of her in the gloom, she glimpsed Jenkins’s portly figure, his dark grey suit almost lost in the fog. He was heading across Lambeth Bridge. 

Penny hurried forward, her footsteps clattering up the steep cobbled approach that led to the bridge. Its ugly iron framework squatted in the mud of the Thames, the wide spans of wire cables curving across the river wreathed in mist. Passing an abandoned toll booth, Penny hurried along the footway. Jenkins was some thirty paces ahead of her, his grey figure stepping like a phantom through the smoke and shadows. Penny quickened her step.

As they neared the far side of the bridge, a line of high chimneys rose out of the fog. Jets of smoke and steam spouted from the dark warehouses and factories, creating a scene that looked more like one of Flinch’s visions of Hell than the London Penelope knew. Pulling her cloak across her mouth to shield herself from the stench of industry, she followed Jenkins as he hurried across the cobbles towards the Horseferry Road.

At the corner of the street, an immense shipping advertisement covered the entire side of a building, its once bright colours now streaked with soot and dust. In his grey business suit Jenkins looked oddly out of place as he plunged into the crowd that thronged the square where the river met the road. Rough journeymen loaded carts with sacks and barrels, whilst dirty-faced boys played leapfrog over broken street posts. In the gutter, a half-naked tramp picked through the rubbish, flinching from the whip crack of a 
passing carriage. The filthy street was filled with every kind of squalor.

Penny hurried on, dogging Jenkins’s trail as he fled into the warren of steep streets, heading west. Where was the man going? Ahead of them a deadlock of carts had come to a sudden standstill as the load from one lay spilled across the cobbles. A curious gaggle of bystanders pressed noisily around the scene, drawn by the clash of wheels and hooves. As the two drivers exchanged threats, the clamour from the crowd rose at the promise of violence.

The pavement narrowed as Penny tried to elbow her way through the press. Stepping into the road, she winced as her boot slipped in the steaming ordure left by the horses. Her anger rising, she pushed her way through the crowd, just in time to see Jenkins disappearing through the doors of a dingy public house.

Penny looked up at the shabby sign hanging above its entrance – The Three Crowns – but from the dirt-encrusted windows and the two drunks slumped in the gutter outside, she could tell that this wasn’t an establishment favoured by the aristocracy.

She had to find out what business Jenkins had there. Pulling the cap further down over her face, she stepped towards the door of the tavern. Then she felt a hand grab at her shoulder and a voice whisper in her ear. 

“Penny!”

She wheeled in surprise to see Alfie emerging from the shadows.

“What are you doing here?” she hissed. “I told you to follow Bradburn!”

“I did,” Alfie replied. “He’s inside the pub. I was going to follow him, but then I saw Jenkins arriving too.”

He cast a nervous glance over his shoulder at one of the drunks, who had now staggered noisily to his feet. The stumpy man lurched towards them with an outstretched hand, the sleeve of his threadbare brown overcoat flailing as he begged for change.

“Spare us a couple of pennies for a pint,” he slurred.

Penny ignored the man, her gaze firmly fixed on the door to the pub.

“We’ve got to go inside – find out what they’re doing there.”

Alfie shook his head as he looked down at Penelope’s clothes: the fine embroidery embellishing her black cloak with its fur-lined collar and velvet trim. Even though her boots were muddied and worse, they were still recognisably fashionable.

“You can’t go in there looking like that,” he told her. “They’ll spot you straightaway.”

“Drink!” the drunken man demanded as he tugged on Alfie’s arm. 

Penny scowled, anxious not to waste any more time on the tavern’s doorstep whilst the answer to Bedlam’s mystery could be uncovered inside.

“So what are we supposed to do?”

IX

The pub was crowded. Dingy red curtains were half-drawn across its small cobwebbed windows, peering like two bloodshot eyes at the darkness within. A motley mob of rivermen, vagrants and thieves thronged the long room, the taller amongst them stooping their heads beneath the low ceiling. A scrum of figures hemmed in the bar at the far end, squeezing their elbows between the empty gin measures, ale quarts and glasses piled up on the metal counter, as they shouted their orders at the barmaid. In reply, her mouth snapped open with a snaggle-toothed leer as she slopped another round of drinks in front of them.

The brim of the cap pulled low over her eyes, Penny looked down at the long brown overcoat she was wearing, her own clothes hidden beneath. It smelled as if something had died inside, but the itch crawling down her back made her fear that something was still alive. Alfie led the way as they pushed through the press of people, grunted 
mutters of protest impeding their path.

“Where are they?” she hissed in Alfie’s ear, as she stepped over the lolling figure of a pale thin man, his threadbare pockets turned out and emptied.

Before Alfie could answer, Penny felt a hand snake into her own pocket, its fingers grasping in search of a purse. Swiftly turning, she grabbed hold of the hand before it had the chance to slip away. Struggling to free himself, a scrawny boy stared up at Penelope, his eyes filled with defiance.

“Keep your hair on,” he whined, “I didn’t take nothing.”

The boy was only a year or so younger than Penny, the top of his head reaching up to her shoulder. He was dressed in an ill-fitting jacket that hung down to his knees, its bulging pockets hinting at the things he had already pilfered.

“You were trying to rob me,” Penny replied indignantly.

At the sound of her cut-glass accent, the boy started in surprise. He caught a glimpse of the fine embroidery hiding beneath the collar of Penelope’s overcoat.

“You’re a proper bit of frock, aren’t you,” he hissed. “Well, don’t think you can rub me in to the peelers.”

Before Penny had a chance to respond, the boy kicked out, his boot striking her ankle. With a yelp of pain, Penny released her grip on his 
hand and the boy darted back into the crowd, disappearing amongst the throng of drinkers.

“Are you all right?” asked Alfie, glancing back in concern. Around them, the shrieks and bellows of the crowd had swallowed Penelope’s cry of pain, nobody paying it the slightest bit of attention.

Penny nodded, a blush of embarrassment rising to her cheeks.

“I’m fine,” she replied through gritted teeth, ignoring the throb of her ankle. “Let’s find Bradburn and Jenkins.”

With a grin, Alfie motioned towards a hodgepodge of beer-stained tables clustered around a miserable-looking fire. At one, Jenkins sat glumly sipping a mug of ale, whilst the burly frame of Bradburn loomed over him. From beneath the brow of her cap, Penelope could see the orderly’s lips moving in a constant snarl, but she couldn’t hear a single word over the babble of voices that filled the room.

“We’ve got to get closer,” she said.

Keeping her head low, Penny bustled her way towards the fireplace and then hunkered down at a table a few feet away, her back to the two men. As Alfie joined her, she strained her ears to make out the sound of their voices.

“But where are the papers?” Jenkins whined. “We agreed – I’d let you take a handful at a time as long as you returned most of them the very 
next day, but the entire office was empty.”

The low growl of Bradburn’s voice cut the clerk’s whine into silence.

“They’re safe, that’s all you need to know. And you keep your mouth shut, unless you want Dr Morris to find out how all those patients’ valuables ended up in a Drury Lane pawnbroker’s shop.”

Penny heard Jenkins splutter in protest.

“Now where are last night’s papers?” Bradburn demanded.

There was a rustling sound. Penny risked a swift glance over her shoulder to see Jenkins pull out a thin brown envelope from inside his jacket and hand it over to Bradburn’s grasping hand.

“Where are the rest of them?” the orderly snarled.

“This is all I could get,” Jenkins moaned in reply. “Since the Midnight Papers disappeared, Dr Morris has set up a new system for collecting the patients’ writings. He’s now keeping them in the safe in his own office. These are all I could take before he locked them away.”

Bradburn let out an angry growl.

“Well, you need to try harder next time,” he warned him. There came a harsh squealing sound as the orderly pushed back his chair from the table and rose to his feet. “Remember: if you break our agreement, then I’ll break your neck.”

In the grimy reflection from her tankard, 
Penelope watched as Bradburn shoved his way through the heaving throng, before his burly frame disappeared out of the door to the street beyond. Left alone at the table, Jenkins buried his head in his hands with a choking sob.

“You stay here with him,” Penny whispered to Alfie. “I want to see where Bradburn goes now.”

Leaving Alfie keeping a watchful gaze over the clerk’s dejected figure, she quickly left the pub. Bradburn was already some thirty paces ahead, striding purposefully up the road. Slipping the threadbare overcoat from her shoulders, Penny dropped it back beside its owner, still slumped in the gutter, but now happily clutching a bottle of gin.

The fog was starting to lift, but Penny stuck close to the shadows as she followed Bradburn’s trail. He was leaving the streets of the riverside slums behind as he headed west in the direction of the more genteel districts of Knightsbridge and South Kensington. The crisp, clean crowds of businessmen and ladies of leisure parted with disdain as Bradburn’s coarse figure passed, but the orderly didn’t even glance back as he strode grimly on.

Keeping him in sight, Penny hurried down the wide promenade, the shops and houses becoming grander with every step that she took. A young gentleman tipped his hat to her as she passed and Penny felt herself beginning to relax. In the 
distance, the grand buildings of the Victoria and Albert Museum rose high above the Cromwell Road, the sweeping curves of its architecture partly obscured by scaffolding. Beyond this, lay the British Museum of Natural History, the Imperial Institute and the Royal Albert Hall. She shook her head. This was her territory. What was Bradburn doing here?

On the opposite side of the road stood a grand red-brick house, its tall windows and fanlights looking down condescendingly at the passing traffic. Bradburn hurried across the road, darting behind a speeding omnibus. Opening the gate, he scurried up the stone steps that led to the front door. Crossing the road after him, Penny sheltered behind the manicured hedge that fronted the property, peeking between its leaves to see what would happen next. She was surprised to see Bradburn ignore the tradesmen’s bell and instead loudly rap twice on the door knocker, the sound of it echoing behind the dark-green door.

After a pause, the front door slowly opened and a butler peered out inquisitively. Bradburn spoke briefly, but from behind the hedge Penelope couldn’t make out the words. Then her sense of surprise grew as she watched the butler quickly usher him inside. The door closed with a slam.

Penelope took a step backwards, looking up at the grand façade of the house. Her eyes swept past its windows and wrought-iron balconies, 
reaching up for five storeys into the darkening sky. It must be worth over ten thousand pounds. What on earth was a two-bob orderly doing here?

“Pardon me, Miss.”

A delivery boy was wheeling a heavily-laden barrow along the narrow pavement.

“Excuse me,” said Penelope as she stepped to one side to let him pass. “Do you know whose house this is?”

The young boy glanced up at the red-brick building and sniffed.

“Course I do,” he replied. “That’s where the Spider Lady of South Kensington lives.”